And we'll lose games 2-0 instead of 3-0. Can't wait. Couple of weeks ago Ramsdale was being touted as the savior. He's a big improvement on Macca of course, but see how he still makes f*ck all difference to our team overall? It will be the same with ABK. Need to start looking at the bigger picture instead of blaming individuals each time the opposition score.
THB is young and learning with a high potential ceiling Stephens is supppsed to be martins go to centre back and captain. He was sent off at that point - so yes the 3rd is also his fault. He wasn’t good enough years ago (he was shipped out). He’s not good enough now. He is a huge problem. Just because he’s a nice guy doesn’t mean you can ignore his faults. He has cost us many goals this season already.
yeah but eventually you have enough good players on the pitch to compete - but you do have to play them
Pretty sure a business owner will care if an event happens which costs the business over £100m. Ludicrous to say otherwise tbh.
Yeah every owner of the bottom 12 PL teams would take 17th every season and sell a player for £60m+. They all would care if they got relegated as it is a huge financial loss, even if there is a high chance you come back up before the parachute payments run out
And what is the bigger picture? That the team overall isn’t good enough? The style of play is stopping a team that is able to compete from competing? That the attackers aren’t good enough but the defence is? That the defence concede too many because of how we play? That the defence isnt good enough for this level? That we don’t create enough because of the players? We don’t create enough because of the way we play, not the players? All/none of the above?
Agreed. I don't think there's any sort of anti-Stephens/pro-THB narrative going on. THB has been very poor this season; he was only on the pitch for a few minutes yesterday and yet somehow that was still enough time to be at fault for a goal. But THB is 22 years old and has never played in the PL before. Whereas Stephens is 30 years old with nearly 150 PL appearances behind him. It's only natural that people will already have fixed opinions on Stephens at this level, but not yet on THB. THB may or may not make it at CB at this level. I have no idea yet. Maybe he might even move into DM at some point in the future, I really don't know. But I do strongly believe that Stephens isn't good to play in the PL. (And I think the same about Bednarek too tbh, although I do rank him ahead of Stephens.)
Exactly. This isn’t a small sample size with Stephens. Over many years he has shown his level is approx upper championship. Same as arma. Why does the club have to relearn the same lessons over and over again?
So why the complete determination to have this possession philosophy then? It's clear to everyone it will get us relegated. If they cared about the £100m then surely they'd do everything in their power to ensure we stayed up. Like buying a striker?
We did buy a striker. Not sure why we keep saying we didn’t. Whether he’s good enough is another question.
They have spent about £70m net this summer, which probably puts us in the top half in the PL spend wise (I haven’t checked). You may think they’ve spent it poorly but to claim they aren’t bothered about their investment seems off the mark
Our recruitment is so bad. When you compare what Ipswich have done with us we look so stupid again. They are building a solid team. We have signed mostly random dross. (Ramsdale, Fernandes and Lesley look good but all the other signings barely improved us.) I will be quite shocked if we get a result next weekend tbh. They look solid.
Also, is the £70m net a bid misleading? I’m mean that whilst we sold £40m or whatever number, I don’t believe there was anyone who we wanted to keep, so it makes the actual spend on players the full £110m in my book - does that make sense??! I’d suggest we were closer to the top of the spend charts. We should be performing better than we are, I don’t believe we were nailed on for relegation, and I don’t believe SR want this either. I think RM has 5 games left if we lose to Ipswich, and I don’t disagree he should be looking at getting fired if it isn’t working, even if people feel 9/10 games is too few.
Personally I think it comes down to style of play. We offer so little going forward, and yet, individually I think the players are good enough. Remember how tough it was playing against bog-standard Championship teams? Almost every side in that league gave us a good game. We need to emulate that; be difficult to play against and always carry a threat. That might mean playing counter-attack with two pacey wingers on the halfway line ready to chase long balls into the channels. I'm no tactician but something like that. Instead we try to play it out of defence every time etc. Its too slow. I'm not saying become a long ball team but we definitely need to be less predictable.
Well Ramsdale, Fernandes, Downes and THB is £80m of our £110m total right there. The other 10 players we’ve signed cost about £30m combined so you could argue that our “main” signings are good in your view? We are/were in exactly the same position of SRs first season where we had so many holes in the squad and a limited amount of money to spend to try and fill all those holes.
